Supreme Court blocks discrimination case against Wal-Mart

June 20, 2011 at 5:20 pm

The Supreme Court blocked a sexual discrimination case brought on behalf of 1.6 million female employees against Wal-mart. Boston University School of Law professor Michael Harper, a leading authority in the area of labor and employment law, offers the following comment:

“The unanimous part of the decision was persuasive and totally predictable from the day the litigation was first brought. It was simply bad public-interest lawyering to frame the class action as it was framed.

“The result was some very troublesome language in the 5-4 part of Justice Scalia’s decision, language that could make the litigation of even well-framed Title VII class actions more difficult in the future.

“Five of the justices clearly were hostile to the case on the merits and joined in a broad decision to avoid a remand. This is the unfortunate result of over reaching by the plaintiffs’ lawyers.”